Links are frequently placed in edit summaries but the user is currently perversely required to revert to wikicode to insert them. The VisEd menu should be available for the edit summary and the text should be displayed as it will be seen. Wysiwyg should apply to all elements of the edit summary (eg, the recently added section title is displayed as code rather than the grey italics as it will be seen).
Potential use cases/impacts/hypotheses
- [potential use case]: enable people to relate edits to the events/campaigns that inspired them to make them (T373232)
- Inspired @AlexHollender-WMF and @ifried...
- [hypothesis] If people have an easier time doing things like mentioning other people, inserting links, and formatting text within the edit summary input, they will invest more effort into writing edit summaries.
- [potential impact] If people write more descriptive edit summaries, then machine learning models will become more effecting at learning from the actions volunteers are taking because these models will have to make fewer inferences/assumptions about the semantic meaning of a change/changes someone is making. This thought is inspired by the conversation we (the Editing Team) had with @diego on 27 July 2022.
- [potential impact] If people write more descriptive edit summaries, then people visiting an article's "page history" will have an easier time: A) understanding how the article they are interested in evolved over time and B) identifying changes they are curious to learn more about
- this could also open up the potential for edits/diffs being presented as small, standalone pieces of information people could "consume"